Thursday, January 17th 2019, 9:52 am
A Central Iowa pet rescue is doing everything it can to help 14 puppies recover after they were thrown off a bridge and into an icy creek.
Amy Heinz, with AHeinz57 Pet Rescue in De Soto, said she took the roughly 5-day-old puppies in over the weekend after receiving a call from a pet rescue near the Missouri-Iowa border.
It was there that authorities said a man tossed a bag full of the newborn puppies over a bridge into the icy water below.
"There is zero reason for this to happen other than you are just a heartless human being," Heinz said.
Thankfully, a family saw the dog dumping unfold.
Terry Parkhurst told KCCI over the phone that he and his brother grabbed the bag out of the water before it fell through the ice.
"These guys would be dead in a creek without Terry and his brother, who found them," said Becky Stuck, with AHeinz 57.
Parkhurst found the 14 shivering puppies inside the bag. Each weighed only around 10 ounces and one still had the umbilical cord attached.
"This guy who did this, what other things is he capable of doing?" Stuck said.
Heinz said the puppies are recovering well, using a surrogate mother to nurse and getting bottle-fed around the clock.
"It's truly amazing because it's truly a miracle that we're watching," Heinz said. "We saw the worst of humanity in the man that threw them over the bridge, but all of these people came together to save them."
Volunteers said the puppies need to weigh six pounds at 8 weeks old before the can be spayed and neutered. They will then be ready for adoption.
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